Reusable Nappy Week!

Hi thar...

I haven't gotten my blog on for a while now, but had to share with you the event I helped to organise for Reusable Nappy Week! It was held in Brisbane yesterday at the Bleeding Heart Gallery which was AWESOME!

We invited people to come along, bring a packet of disposable nappies to exchange for a FREE modern cloth nappy! Everyone who uses MCN knows what an awesome deal that is, cloth nappies retail for $25 to $40! The plan was to create a massive pile of 6000 disposable nappies, to display next to 30 MCN... because the average 2 and a half year old will have gone through 6000 sposies before they potty train OR just 30 MCN. What a MASSIVE difference!

We hoped to outline to people exactly what they were choosing between. There are some myths that I hear often about using cloth which deter people from making the switch. Here are some FACTS for you:

• Using cloth doesn't necessarily mean using terry squares that require soaking, ironing, folding and pinning! Modern Cloth nappies don't require any of those things, you simply take it off your bub, chuck the nappy into a dry wetbag and every day or two, bung your nappies in the wash and press GO! No harder than washing clothes.



• It is NOT TRUE that the laundering process for cloth nappies is worse for the environment than using disposables. It takes more water and electricity to manufacture a disposable nappy than to wash cloth nappies.



• Using cloth nappies will save you a BUTTLOAD of cash! You may panic at the initial cost to buy your cloth nappies, but its a one off purchase. In the end you will save THOUSANDS of dollars! Note: you will also buy less pants. Speshly in summer. MCN are bum ART!



• MCN are super easy to use! If you can put a sposie on you can put a cloth nappy on. In fact... the amount of times hubby has thrown his hands in the air after trying unsuccessfully to put a night disposable on our daughter is amusing! Never happens with our cloth nappies: he knows exactly which snaps go where, and they can't be misplaced due to squirming!



• MCN are BEAUTIFUL! You can get personalised embroidered nappies... every colour... animal prints... soft minky... even DENIM nappies that look like a pair of JEANS!

Using disposables is wasteful and boring. Plus would you rather wear plastic knickers or cloth ones? You know what I'm talking about, its bad enough using disposable sanitary pads for a few days a month (on that note: switch to modern cloth pads! Thats a convo for another time though)

Anyhoo... the day was great, everyone who came recieved a gorgeous free MCN! Smiles all round! It was such a great atmosphere with all of those like minded mums, Mature Modern Mums got some great photos of us all breastfeeding at the event!

Unfortunately we didn't hit our target for disposables, getting 3712 in the end. Still a massive pile!! Thankyou to everyone who donated nappies, the disposables are all going to Backpacks 4 Aussie kids, a charity who creates backpacks to send to children going into foster care... imagine having a baby land on your doorstep at 2am without much notice? A backpack with nappies included would be a LIFE SAVER! They do great work, check them out and donate to them if you can :)

I'm still exhausted from yesterday, I almost lost my voice from chatting non-stop, my legs and back ache from lugging 270 MCN from my car to the event (and standing up all day!) and there were a few other miscellaneous injuries:

• One large knee bruise due to run in with a table



• One mystery finger gash, one of those ones you don't notice you did until later



• One HUGE shoulder bruise from running into a fire hose at full speed (I lost my keys at the end of the day and was sprinting from the carpark to the venue to look for them! Turns out I'd sent them home with Elizabeth in a random bag, her kind hubby drove them back to me!)



• One chunk of my heart was missing all day as Butterfly tore around the venue with her amazing Grandma... I hardly saw her! Thank goodness for breastfeeding, she had to stop her fun and come back to me occasionally!

It was totally awesome to be involved in such a great event, Nicole and Elizabeth, my co-conspiritors, are AMAZING talented women who put in so much work! I'm glad to have made friends with two beautiful women.

Looks like we are being forced to smile at gunpoint huh... LOL three happy yet frazzled ladies!

Will I be involved next year? Ask me in a week. I'm still recovering from this one! The ANN have asked me to become a volunteer, which I may do, they do fantastic work to spread the cloth love!

CLOTH ROCKS!